Close Your Eyes
by peroxidepest17
Summary: What is right for Yuuko isn’t always right for Watanuki.


**Title:** Close Your Eyes  
**Universe: ** XXXholic  
**Theme/Topic:** Fear of Falling  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Yuuko, slight DoumekixWatanuki  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Probably OOC?  
**Word Count: **2,429  
**Summary:** What is right for Yuuko isn't always right for Watanuki.  
**Dedication:** sophiap's request on my lj! Yay, last one! Sorry for throwing Doumeki and Watanuki into this, but when I read your prompt I felt like I should know more about Yuuko's history than I do before I could even attempt to make her stand alone okay in any of my ficcage. So yeah. Doumeki and Watanuki join in as my safety nets. Heh. **  
A/N: **Wow this made sense when I was writing it at 2 in the morning yesterday. Today? Not so much. LOL I guess 2am is the hour of the crack-fairies in my head or something. Apologies for the nonsensical-ness. Maybe the Air Gear Musical infected my brain with even more retarded. XD;;  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

Sometimes she walks through his dreams. The doors are easy enough to open and his mind is unguarded at night (more because he is Watanuki than because that is normal). Surely he would squirm if he'd known, but better her invading his mind than someone or something else, she thinks. As for her, she has no real agenda. It is just nice sometimes, to be able to walk alongside the path that you yourself did not choose to take.

Lately he is having the same dream over and over again. She watches from the shadows as he approaches a bridge suspended over a cliff, and smiling to herself, she thinks it is a familiar and old—very old—way of his heart trying to make a choice.

It is old enough in fact, that she remembers it herself, from a time when she had been able to dream her own dreams.

But unlike her, every time he dreams this dream he has been unable to move forward either way, peering fearfully down into the misty chasm's unknown depths. He cannot see the bottom.

He cannot see the road across either, and so he does not know where to go.

But she thinks that isn't that half the fun?

He, however, doesn't move. Time and time again, he remains, looking, watching, wondering.

She thinks that it is at times like these that he reminds her of an age past, that he makes her think that he and she are more alike than he would ever be comfortable admitting.

The twelfth time he has the dream she steps out of the shadows and onto the bridge, because thirteen is an unlucky number and his is a life so full of potential.

"Yuuko-san!" he breathes, when she materializes out of the mists. Then the awe wears off, and his eyes narrow. He sighs. "I should have known you would become involved in something like this."

She twitters at him, because even in his dreams, Watanuki will be Watanuki. "Well?" she asks, and holds her arms out on either side as far as they will go. "Are you coming? Or not?"

"Hold onto the ropes!" he shouts, when he sees that she is standing on that rickety old bridge and holding onto nothing.

She blinks. "Is something the matter?"

"You'll fall!" he insists, and is actually starting to sweat. "It must be a long way down."

She cranes her neck to the side and peers over the edge. "Is it? How can you tell it is with all that fog?"

"Well how can you tell it _isn't_?!" he shoots back waspishly, getting even tenser when he sees her shift her weight sideways to look down.

"But you can't see to the bottom! It might not be very far at all, for all you know."

"But it might be!" he shoots back, in all logic. Sometimes, she thinks, he can try to be a little bit too rational for his own good.

She sighs and flips her hair. "Well you won't fall if you use the bridge either way. That's what it's for, isn't it?"

It's the safest bet, after all. And she would know.

He makes a face. "Do you know where it goes?"

"I've been there and back," she tells him, solemnly.

He looks relieved. "Then where are we going?"

She taps her chin thoughtfully. "I don't know."

He stares. Then glares. "I thought you said you'd been there and back!"

She simply looks at him. "Well, this is _your_ dream."

He slaps a hand to his forehead. "Yes, yes. My dream. Well. I can just wait to wake up then, can't I?"

She shrugs one shoulder, lazily. "If you want."

And then she turns, and hands still held out on either side of her, moves like a tightrope walker along the length of the bridge. It shakes when she walks, and little chips of wood fall from the ancient boards, falling into the mists below.

She smiles and hops onto the next one. It thunks, creaks, groans. They are horrible sounds. But she isn't afraid—she's been across and back. This is Watanuki's bridge.

From the safety of the ground some ways behind her, Watanuki pales. "Cut that out! Can't you tell it's not safe."

"I've been here and back," she tells him breezily, and skips to the next one. It cracks down the middle but doesn't collapse.

"Agh!" he whimpers, when he sees it. He's a very sympathetic boy, Yuuko thinks. Very kind.

So much so that as he watches her, he acts as if he is the one who might fall through the bridge at any instant instead. Maybe he is.

"Okay, stop it, will you?!" he hisses, and manages to force himself into taking two steps forward. "I'm coming, I'm coming, so cut that out! What are you, five years old?"

She laughs at him. "Well come along then, Watanuki-kun, and see what your dream world has made for you on the other end."

He takes a deep breath. "Right. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming and even if I fall it won't matter because this is not real." He takes another step forward, onto the rickety bridge. It gives a great groan, and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

"Well?" Yuuko asks. "The first step is always the hardest, right? But it should be easier from here."

He legs are shaking "Clearly not!" he shouts back at her, white-knuckled as he grips the bridge's flimsy rope handrails and breathes very slowly through his nose.

She blinks. "No?"

"Of course no! What part of this looks simple?! I don't know how you can do this all by yourself without a worry in the world. Hold the rails, damn you."

She smirks at that. "Well, I guess that's just the difference between you and I, ne, Watanuki-kun?" She gives another hop and another twirl.

He scowls at her teasing. "Right. I'm coming, I'm coming. Cut that out."

He takes another step. Freezes in trepidation when the wooden plank bends slightly under his weight. When it holds, he lets out a breath and moves on. Every step is more agonizing than the last.

Yuuko watches him, and finds that in these moments, that for all that she and Watanuki are supposedly alike, they are also fundamentally different as well. But that's okay. Variety keeps life interesting, and it will be nice to be able to see someone walk upon the path that you yourself did not ever choose to take.

She stops and waits for him as he creeps along, awkward and horrible. The bridge whines and creaks in protest even at his lightest step.

It seems to take forever, but soon he's at her side, flushed from exertion and constantly looking down, as if the swirling mists below will suddenly rise up to devour him.

She smiles at him. "Good work, Watanuki!"

He looks at her in disbelief. "How can you do this so easily?!" he demands, wiping sweat from his brow with the corner of his sleeve and not caring that it's a very bad habit.

"Why, there's a trick to it, of course," she tells him.

He stares.

And then looks like he is about to scream. He does, but it is in a whisper, because he is still so petrified. "Why didn't you _tell_ me that just now?"

She is, of course, unrepentant. "Shall I tell you now, then?"

"Yes! That should be obvious isn't it?" he tells her, gesturing to the rest of the bridge. They can almost make out an end to it now that they are at its center, where the mist is not as thick.

She puts a hand on his shoulder. "Alright then, I'll tell you. But you have to close your eyes."

He is instantly suspicious. "Why?"

"Because it's part of the trick, of course."

He scowls. "I hate you."

But he closes his eyes anyway. He is a sympathetic boy, and also a trusting one, ultimately. That, she thinks, is the biggest difference between them.

She leans forward then, to whisper in his ear. "The trick is," she begins, and the hand resting on his shoulder begins to _push_, "you have to pick the way that feels most natural to you."

He only manages one, shocked sputter before he falls over the edge.

She watches him disappear into the mists below, and thinks to herself that even if this is a familiar, familiar dream, it is Watanuki's and not hers. She smiles, and is very genuinely delighted to get to see someone walk the path she did not choose for herself.

Though, she wonders if she might have picked it after all, if she had had someone there to catch her when she fell as well.

At the thought, she laughs to herself and fades out of Watanuki's dream world for the night, leaving behind the bridge she remembers from her own dreams ages ago, leaving behind the path she chose to take alone rather than risk falling blindly.

She knows that after tonight, it will be much, much harder to find a way into Watanuki's dreams. He's moved forward now, after all. Grown up a little.

But that's okay too. The most interesting moments in life come from those we are awake to see.

* * *

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH……Ooof."

Watanuki's eyes shoot open when he hits… not the ground, but something else.

His breathing is coming in labored pants and he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, thundering like a war drum.

He has landed on something.

As proof, from underneath him, someone who isn't him says, "Um."

Watanuki blinks, dazedly. "What…"

Doumeki sighs. "You were asleep."

"I…really?"

"Unless you were just looking for an excuse to jump on me," Doumeki says, drolly.

Then Watanuki blinks again, and looks down. Sees Doumeki's face right in front of his own. "OH my god why are you in my apartment?!" he demands, and even momentarily forgets about the heart-stopping dream he'd just woken from to recognize the very illegal things Doumeki Shizuka must have had to do to get in here while Watanuki had been sleeping.

"We got a big crate of oranges from my one of my dad's old school friends yesterday and my mother wanted me to bring you some," Doumeki explained, drolly. "I knocked."

Like that makes it okay. "Like that makes it okay!" Watanuki shouts. "How did you get in?"

"I heard screaming."

"That explains nothing of what I asked you. _Nothing._"

"Door was unlocked," Doumeki responds, simply. "You really ought to lock it before you sleep."

"Clearly," Watanuki mutters, though oddly enough, he distinctly remembers locking it before bed last night.

"When I came in you were screaming and flailing around. I tried to wake you and then you jumped on me."

"I was shoved!" Watanuki says quickly, to clarify exactly what really happened so Doumeki doesn't get any stupid ideas into his stupid head.

Doumeki just blinks "You were…shoved from the floor?"

Pause.

Sigh. "Shut up."

They look at each other.

"Stop staring at me!"

"Well if you'd get off of me…"

Watanuki "meeps" and quickly scrambles off of him when he realizes that he is still very much, on top of Doumeki.

Doumeki sits up then, and straightens his sleeves without changing expressions once.

Watanuki sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "What time is it?"

"Eleven. Sleeping in must be nice."

Watanuki scowls at him and wishes he had something to throw. "I was dreaming!"

"Of being shoved? That seems like a three minute dream at best."

Watanuki tosses his pillow before he knows what he's doing. Doumeki catches it.

"I… there was a bridge," Watanuki begins, lamely. "And Yuuko-san was…" Pause. Blink. "Oh god I'm _dreaming_ about her now too," Watanuki wails, looking very vaguely horrified. "This can't be good."

Doumeki does not react.

Watanuki ignores him anyway, so it doesn't matter. "She _pushed_ me off the bridge before I could cross it and see what was on the other side. That was incredibly not nice."

"Why?"

"Why?! It was a bridge! Over a cliff! How is pushing someone off of it anything _but_ not nice?"

Doumeki shrugs. "Maybe whatever was on the other side was worse than falling."

"That doesn't make sense either!" Watanuki mutters. "There is clearly something wrong with your brain."

"Did you hit?" Doumeki asks next.

"What?"

"The ground."

"What? No! I… I woke up."

Doumeki shrugs again. "Maybe whatever was on the other side would have eaten you. That could be worse than falling and never hitting anything."

"You are messed up in the head," Watanuki tells Doumeki, and then stands and starts to make his bed. He yanks his pillow out of Doumeki's hand and sets it to rights. "Of course the bridge was safer. She even told me in the dream that she'd been there and back. Maybe."

Doumeki thrusts a bag of oranges at Watanuki when he's done making the bed and Watanuki takes them by rote. "Well, not a lot of things try to eat Yuuko," Shizuka offers after a beat. "They usually try to eat you."

Watanuki pauses, because that makes an odd sort of sense. But he sniffs anyway, just because it had been Doumeki who brought the theory up.

"I'm making breakfast. Er, brunch," he says instead, and heads into the kitchen with his bag of oranges. "You are going to squeeze the oranges for juice and I am going to make omelets. Then I'm going to use the orange peels to make cookies and then you are going to take them back to your mother as thanks for the oranges. And you are never again, to come into my apartment without express permission, even if the door is unlocked and you knock first. Have I made myself clear? Really… you've got no sense of common decency."

Doumeki wordlessly follows him into the kitchen and begins squeezing some of the oranges for juice.

Later that afternoon, when Watanuki brings a couple of orange cookies for Yuuko as well, she smiles and takes them and asks him if he's had any interesting dreams lately.

He only scowls at her and declares that he is going to go sweep out the store room and that Doumeki is a big stupid criminal with no social graces.

She laughs as she watches him go, and is very glad that he has chosen to walk the path that she had not.

Because really, no matter how she looks at it, solitude does not suit him.

**END**


End file.
